Horse Treats By, Meredith Rogers
Although horse racing is not what we do, here are some interesting stories from the track. in honor of the Kentucky Derby this month A jockey-less horse won the Gulfstream Park Handicap in 2013. The horse, Fort Larned, stumbled at the start of the race and lost his jockey, Brian Hernandez Jr., who was unharmed. The horse kept going and ended up winning the race by 15 lengths. Unfortunately, without a jockey, he couldn’t be called the winner. He entered the breeding shed in 2014 and is still siring foals today. A jockey named Frank Hayes won his first race at the age of 22 years old on June 4, 1923 at Belmont Park. The problem was that it was also his last race. Unfortunately, Mr. Hayes suffered a fatal heart attack towards the end of the race. The horse he was on, Sweet Kiss, continued running and won by a head. She had been a 20-1 long-shot. This was the first, and presumably only time a jockey won a race posthumously. Mr. Hayes had been a stablehand and it was thought that the heart attack was brought on by the rapid weight loss he endured to be able to race: from 142 lbs to 130 lbs in ~24 hours. He was buried in his racing silks 3 days later and the horse never raced again because no jockey would touch her, especially since her new nickname was “Sweet Kiss of Death”. An Irish racehorse was kidnapped and held for ransom. On a foggy evening of 1983, a coordinated attack was made on the horse’s groom’s family. James Fitzgerald, the groom, was forced to show the thieves where the horse, Shergar, was being stabled and help them load him into a horse box (trailer). After taking the horse, the robbers demanded ransom from the owners, who refused to pay in case it spurred further kidnappings. Unfortunately, despite the police’s best efforts, including hiring a clairvoyant, the fate of Shergar was never known. It has been proposed that Shergar was stolen by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) special operations team. The slowest time for a race win was recorded by Never Mind II. In 1945, Never Mind II refused a fence in a steeplechase, was taken out of the race by his jockey, and brought back to the paddock. However, every other horse either fell or was disqualified, so his jockey mounted back up and completed the race at his leisure. He finished the 2-mile race in 11 minutes and 28 seconds. In another steeplechase in 1953, a horse named Royal Student crashed followed right on his heels by another horse named Knother, who was being ridden by Mick Morrissey. Mr. Morrissey was thrown into the air and landed on Royal Student’s saddle and continued
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